From Berlin to Baghdad Book

Painful chronicle of the black male underclass of the USA in the 1940s. Written in the 60s by Robert Beck who lived a similar life of crime in the same era and later went straight and became a writer. The “Trick Baby” of the title is the very pale skinned son of a black woman who gets whacked by racism from both sides – and sometimes shares the insider talk on both sides of the race line.

What I liked about it was its no-holds-barred directness about how a life of crime can get chosen without evil intention, and how powerful and ubiquitous racism is in cutting off black people’s choices.

What I didn’t like was the uncritical way the story slings around male sexism that is really on a par with racism in its brutal and unconscious judgement and treatment of those outside the relatively privileged group.